Random bright frames / flicker in mp4 after export. PE 2018.

Report · Mar 26, 2020

When watching an mp4 video created by PE 2018, every once in a while there is a slight flicker, i.e. one single frame randomly has a higher luminance than the others. These "flashing" glitches are never present in the preview, only in the mp4 after export. They are definitely not present in the original files and seem to appear in different places even without making any changes to the timeline. I've experimented with different settings (turning maximum bit depth, hardware acceleration, etc... on/off) but different settings only lead to the glitch appearing in different locations.

Has anyone else experienced this? Please help. This is EXTREMELY annoying for a perfectionist like me. I want a clean professional looking output. These random flickers ruin it for me.

Report · Mar 27, 2020

What device recorded your original video?

Open a sample of your raw footage in the free download MediaInfo. In MediaInfo, set View to Text and then copy the text of its report and paste it to this forum. We need to determine if the issue is in your source footage specs.

Also, what software are you playing your finished MP4 on? Try VLC Media Player. It's free and it has none of the limitations of say Windows Media Player or Quicktime.

Report · Mar 27, 2020

Bright fames have appeared on an mp4 clip that I created/encoded with PE 18 itself then imported into the larger project.

General
Complete name : C:\Users\Marshall Stoner\Pictures\costa_rica_2020\project\opening.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42 (mp42/mp41)
File size : 143 MiB
Duration : 20 s 20 ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 60.0 Mb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2020-03-06 18:30:35
Tagged date : UTC 2020-03-06 18:30:39
©TIM : 00:00:00:00
©TSC : 30000
©TSZ : 1001

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.2
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=29
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 20 s 20 ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 60.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 120 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.965
Stream size : 143 MiB (100%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2020-03-06 18:30:35
Tagged date : UTC 2020-03-06 18:30:35
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Report · Mar 27, 2020

The problem appears on VLC as well.

Report · Mar 27, 2020

Update: After some investigation it seems like the overall size of the project is leading to these problems. The project is about 15 minutes long and references about 33 GB worth of source data. If I render only a short section the problem doesn't appear. I will try cutting the video in half where there is a fade-to-black around 9 minutes.

The problem then is I will have to re-encode when I put the parts back together. Unless there is a way to join without re-incoding somehow with ffmpeg.

Report · Mar 27, 2020

Good detective work -- although I've never experienced anything like that on any of my projects. Though I'm also not quite sure why a 15 minute long video is using 33 gigs worth of data. So maybe there is more to this story.

That said, you can certainly output your project as 10 minute MP4s and then join the MP4s in a master project for your final output.

Report · Mar 27, 2020

I have a lot of footage, but most of it isn't used. I have many 3-5 minute long clips that I only end up actually using a few 10 second sections. I also have some video that I recorded at normal speed but speed up 16x within the project. In this case the original footage obviously takes up a lot more space. The sped-up footage is the most computationally intensive part of the timeline, but that's not where the glitches are occurring. They seem to occur after slow dissolves or fading transitions - but not necessarily during the transition. The flash seems to happen after the transition completes, maybe 1/2 second later. Again, it's difficult to test because it's not consistently in the same place.

Anyways, I want to see if I can render a 10 minute video without any glitches. I'm still not 100% positive I have a reliable solution as I've only tested 2 minute sections so far.

Report · Mar 28, 2020

One question meantime: The footage you provided the MediaInfo report for, is this your raw footage? It looks more like it's your rendered footage from Premiere Elements.

We need to see the specs of the footage you're using as your source media for editing.

Report · Mar 28, 2020

I tried to explain. I guess you didn't understand. I created an "opening" clip using a combination of raw footage and transparent text. Because the effect was not working the way I wanted it to in the project, I made it into its own clip and then inserted it into the larger project. The "opening" clip was created using the combination of a PNG and some video footage. I can try remaking it with different settings but I want to keep high quality. Even the original footage used to create that had to first be converted from h265 to h264 using ffmpeg (libx264) to even work in premiere elements. I don't even have the h265 footage anymore as I had to deleta it off my GoPro to clear space. Do you want me to give you the h264 footage?

Could the problem be the PNG file? I don't understand what the program could be doing to insert random bright frames. It seems like a really stupid encoding bug as it doesn't happen at all in the preview. Also cutting the length down to 10 minutes didn't help. I have no idea at this point.

Report · Mar 28, 2020

Here is the background footage (h264 version created with ffmpeg).

General
Complete name : C:\Users\Marshall Stoner\Pictures\2020-01-16\project\GX014838h264.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 206 MiB
Duration : 31 s 360 ms
Overall bit rate : 55.1 Mb/s
Writing application : Lavf58.17.101

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.2
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 31 s 348 ms
Bit rate : 54.9 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.441
Stream size : 205 MiB (100%)
Title : GoPro H.265
Writing library : x264 core 155 r2901 7d0ff22
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Color range : Full

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 31 s 360 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 725 KiB (0%)
Title : GoPro AAC
Language : English
Default : Yes
Alternate group : 1

Other
ID : 3
Type : Time code
Format : QuickTime TC
Duration : 31 s 348 ms
Time code of first frame : 16:44:18:31
Time code, striped : Yes
Title : GoPro H.265
Language : English
Default : No

Report · Mar 28, 2020

It's not like the PNG is your issue. I still think it's related to your original footage -- or possibly even the converted MP4 footage that you used as your source footage, depending on what converter you used and what settings you used to do it.

There are a couple of challenges in the footage report you just posted. The H.265 codec. The Apple indicator, which might mean that this is an HVEC video clip. It's 60 fps frame rate.

If you think I'm way off and you'd prefer someone else answer, I'm glad to step aside. No offense will be taken. But my focus is and will remain on your source footage.

Report · Mar 28, 2020

It's not h.265. It's h.264. 100% positive. If it was h.265 it wouldn't even load into project. I'm using PE 2018 on a windows 10 machine. PE 2018 does't support h.265 at all. I converted to h.264 using ffmpeg, but ffmpeg didn't remove certain metadata tags from the original. The video is 60 fps, but in my timeline I play it at 50% speed (i.e. it's a slow-motion clip).

Report · Mar 28, 2020

I'm also 10000% positive no flash occurs in the original footage. The original footage plays perfectly. Perhaps it's encoded in a bad way. When converting from h.265 to h.264 I used the "constant rate function" setting at a value of 16 rather than the constant bit rate because I didn't want to lose any quality. Would forcing the source footage to have more I-frames help? I can't do that with PE, but I think ffmpeg can do it.

Report · Mar 30, 2020

Is there anyone else who can help me or is this a lost cause? Maybe I'd get more help posting in the "pro" section as there's more advanced users there. I just can't afford $20 a month so I'm using elements.